Kyoto Day Three
Today was the catch-up day of things I hadn't gotten to in Kyoto, starting with a visit to the Ninjo Palace. This, like the one in Nagoya, is very masculine, austere and war-like in its battlements and moats. The house where the shogun lived has a "nightingale floor" made to creak at the slightest step to warn of approaching threats. It's got large rooms with nothing in them (tatami mats, with everything else withdrawn each day) but beautiful screen paintings. The gardens are impressive - pretty would be about the last word you'd use on them - even in their dormancy. Of course there are Japanese gardeners everywhere, trimming and raking. looking like they belong in Southern California!
After the palace I took busses and walked to the Kinkaku-ji, or Golden Pavilion. This is the one you see all the postcards of - it's top two stories are in gold leaf and garish as all get-out. It's set in a pretty setting but (and I don't think because of the overcast sky) I was not particularly impressed. I liked the Silver Pavilion of yesterday much more.
From there I went to the Ryoan-ji, the zen temple which has the famous rock garden. You pay 400 yen to go in, walk through a nice garden, go up to the temple, and sit and contemplate the rock garden. This garden is 10 meters by 30 meters, and consists of white crushed rock around fifteen stones. The garden was laid out by a painter and gardener who died in 1525. I assume it's been re-raked since then, but there is no explanation as to what the significance of the stones is. A great explanation plaque is provided, to the effect that no one knows what it means - it may be fifteen souls adrift in zen nothingness. OR it may be a mother tiger taking her cubs across a stream. Whatever.
Now getting back was a problem but after a fair amount of walking I got to a bus stop, and from there into the center of Kyoto. Nestled amidst giant department stores is a fish-mall. Well, produce too. This is not a village market, but beautifully arrayed fruit and hundreds of kinds of fish, etc. - the Nishiki Food Market. I got sushi there but frankly it wasn't any fresher or better than what I get in NYC. Leaving there I shopped up and down Shijo street, which has many small shops as well as large ones, and I bought a number of souvenirs.
At this point I realized it was almost 5 and I had not gotten money enough (or rather had spent money) to pay for the minshuku. Whereupon I attempted to find an exchange or an ATM. Both hotels and ATMs had mysteriously disappeared, so I ended up going a long way out of the way to find a hotel, taking busses the wrong direction, and ending back up where I had started with money but with two hours lost. But I didn't take a taxi!!
Walking back to the minshuku I found a charming restaurant, very pricey looking but with reasonable prices, and had a lovely "set" dinner which should last me until about midnight. Let me see if I can reconstruct it. Across the top: a dish with several kinds of pickles and vegetables in them. A dish with four small pieces of tempura including one shrimp. A dish containing two pieces of sashimi and some wasabe. A dish of cold soba noodles - plain. Across the bottom: two little seaweed rolls containing soba noodles instead of rice. A mound of brown rice, well seasoned with a few bits of something in it. A dish containing some of the lovely custardy tofu I'd had last night, sitting in its sauce like a creme caramel. I was given a little bowl of sauce, NOT shoju it was explained, to which I was to add provided wasabe and green onions chopped fine. The soba noodles, and the tempura could go in that. The sashimi was to go in the other dish, containing plain shoju, and apparently under no circumstances into the other bowl. The rules regarding which sauce goes with which dish are as rigid as they are for slippers. In any event, it was a very pretty, rather bland meal, and I'm glad to have had it, though $17.00 is a bit pricey.
Came home to find a group of kenjo-practicing boys being instructed in the room next door, which is larger than the others here. They all sat cross-legged with their bananas in front of them and said hai whenever the instructors said something. They are going to be in a meet tomorrow, they tell me. I guess with Thai kids because they were learning to say sawadee-ka!
I slipped off to have a hot tub - this can get very addicting, I have realized - and came back to lots of giggles and chatters. It's only 9 pm so I assume they'll calm down. The walls between me and them are quite literally paper, of course, so I do hope they are quiet eventually. Tomorrow is a long transit day of course, so I need my sleep tonight in order to see all the movies tomorrow!